Npr

We enjoy watching Mr. Juan Williams on Fox News. He is a straight, honest, smart man. He is entitled to his opinions and views. He is also entitled to feelings of fear and discomfort in certain situations. Who has not thought of 9-11 when flying in the company of individuals who look like Muslims? How arrogant of Vivian Schiller, CEO of NPR, to say that "Juan Williams should have kept his feelings about Muslims between himself and his psychiatrist or his publicist. " NPR should not be the recipient of government funds.

Everyone loves to tell stories. But many raconteurs make the same mistake, according to master storyteller Caren Neile: They forget their listeners. Neile, an instructor at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton , has been helping 18 amateur bards develop their audience connection skills through the Jewish Storytelling Project, a series of workshops at the Sandler Center for Jewish Life Enhancement west of Boca Raton . They will perform their narratives for the public on Saturday.

Flowers for Mother's Day are not an inexpensive proposition. But if you're going to give flowers, why not a tax-deductible donation to National Public Radio station WLRN? For $120, Field of Flowers will deliver a basket of assorted flowers to Mom -- plus you get to write it off! Go to Mother's Day flowers or call 866-247-9576. Note that WLRN.org says the flowers will be delivered between 5/7 and 5/9, but doesn't guarantee the exact delivery date. But if you're a risk-taker, you mother will just be happy you remembered.

An NPR report Tuesday might help explain why voter turnout among Democrats in Broward is often less than it should be based on the number of registered voters in both parties. Basically, the report said, longer commutes translate into less political involvement. But there's more nuance: that's especially true for lower income voters. Low-income voters are disproportionately Democrats. And Broward sure has long commutes, which can be especially ugly for low-income workers. Here's the NPR audio for researchers think an increase in commuting may be partly to blame for widespread political disengagement among many Americans.

It never takes the conservative talk machine long to find another excuse to demonize National Public Radio. This time it's NPR's firing of Juan Williams. Williams had said publicly that people dressed in Muslim clothing make him "nervous" on airplanes. There's nothing wrong with that opinion; many Americans feel the same way, and not without justification. It was, after all, only Muslims who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001. In expressing that opinion on Fox News, however, Williams violated an NPR policy requiring its journalists to stick to strict analysis and not engage in punditry, a policy NPR says he was warned about.

Re Cal Thomas' commentary, "NPR is blind to its own liberal bias" on March 21: Mr. Thomas writes that "The problem for NPR and other media is not only bias, but blindness. Large numbers of Americans believe NPR and the broadcast networks are hostile to their beliefs. " Mr. Thomas has no facts on which to base these bitter words. There have been no national polls that back up his statement. "Hostile to their beliefs" comes not from fact, but from Mr. Thomas' illusions of the facts.

Download for free 11 songs from National Public Radio's favorite artists of 2011 featured on "All Songs Considered. " On the best-loved list: The Alabama Shakes' "I Found You," "Old Friend" by Caveman, Delay Trees' "Gold," along with tunes by EMA, right, Fabian Almazan, rapper SDX and several other up-and-coming young musicians. There also is a short feature about each band or artist, making the case for why it made the list. Click here for the deal. Download all the tracks or just individual songs.

NPR commentator Juan Williams, speaking on Fox News, told commentator Bill O'Reilly — who always seems to be in the middle of stuff like this — that people dressed in traditional Muslim clothing made him "nervous" on airplanes. NPR said the comment was "inconsistent with our editorial standards," the Los Angeles Times reported, and fired him. Many Americans feel the same way as Williams, who said people in Muslim garb "are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims.

Seriously, this parlor trick is getting old. The latest embarrassing gotcha snared NPR's former top fundraiser. There he was, covertly videotaped waxing on, confirming the worst suspicions of public broadcasting's detractors. Yeah, mused Ronald Schiller, maybe we'd be better off without the federal funding conservatives in Congress want to hack from our budgets. Then he mouthed off about tea party supporters, casting the lot of them under the label racist. A week or so before the NPR videos were released, it was a Republican's turn to get suckered.

The topic is campaign finance reform, an issue Congress keeps dodging, and not artfully. Ray Suarez, host of National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation, asks his guests (a former Congressman, a print journalist and an NPR political reporter) how the system can be changed so it isn't what it appears to be now, "paid-for legislation?" The phone lines open, and the callers, literate and well-spoken, weigh in. "Well, John made an interesting point at the beginning of his remark . . .," Suarez says, tactfully herding the conversation back on track.

Two well-known personalities at WLRN Radio (91.3-FM) have departed the South Florida station. News Director Dan Grech and anchor/reporter Phil Latzman left the National Public Radio affiliate this month. General Manager John Labonia declined to comment on the departures. Grech, former Miami Herald reporter, oversaw a news partnership between the radio station and the newspaper. In recent years, he had become a public face for the station, attending local and national news conferences, including PBS' annual convention in May in Miami Beach, where he spoke about the importance of local news coverage and a sense of community.

A 14-year-old southwest Florida girl purchased her own home and is considering saving up for a second property, NPR reports. Willow Tufano's real estate career began after her mom started helping investors purchase foreclosed properties and Willow would sell leftover furniture and appliances on Craigslist. When a $100,000 Port Charlotte home recently went to auction for $12,000, Willow split the cost with her mother and plans to buy her out and take full ownership of the property when she turns 18, NPR reported.

Community forum on anti-Semitism How do you combat anti-Semitism in a world without Holocaust survivors? That's the topic of the next Sun Sentinel and Jewish Journal community forum. The panelists will include Hannah Rosenthal, the U.S. State Department's Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, Arthur Berger, Senior Advisor for External Affairs at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Andrew Rosenkranz, Southern Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League.

Download for free 11 songs from National Public Radio's favorite artists of 2011 featured on "All Songs Considered. " On the best-loved list: The Alabama Shakes' "I Found You," "Old Friend" by Caveman, Delay Trees' "Gold," along with tunes by EMA, right, Fabian Almazan, rapper SDX and several other up-and-coming young musicians. There also is a short feature about each band or artist, making the case for why it made the list. Click here for the deal. Download all the tracks or just individual songs.

Alan Cheuse is a versatile writer, well regarded in certain circles, at least, for his short fiction, his travel books and his novels, including an impressively ambitious new one, "Songs of Slaves in the Desert. " But he's quite content to be best known as the book reviewer for NPR's "All Things Considered. " "It's an odd thing," Cheuse says, "but I'm grateful I can do that gig. We have 29 million listeners a week. God knows in this media climate I'm grateful anyone thinks of me other than my wife, my students and a few close friends.

Re Cal Thomas' commentary, "NPR is blind to its own liberal bias" on March 21: Mr. Thomas writes that "The problem for NPR and other media is not only bias, but blindness. Large numbers of Americans believe NPR and the broadcast networks are hostile to their beliefs. " Mr. Thomas has no facts on which to base these bitter words. There have been no national polls that back up his statement. "Hostile to their beliefs" comes not from fact, but from Mr. Thomas' illusions of the facts.

Could NPR survive without public funding? That depends on which NPR you're talking about. There are two NPRs. There's the national news and talk show syndicator formerly known as National Public Radio, and there are about 800 local "member stations" that buy its programming. It is the local stations that serve more rural and less wealthy markets that would suffer the most without the federal grants they receive. Those grants have come under renewed attack as the new Republican-dominated House looks for ways to make good on their promises to trim federal spending.

Executives at National Public Radio are increasingly at odds with the Bush appointees who lead the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In one of several points of conflict in recent months, the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which allocates federal funds for public radio and television, is considering a plan to monitor Middle East coverage on NPR news programs for evidence of bias, a corporation spokesman said on Friday. The corporation's board has told its staff that it should consider redirecting money from national news broadcasts and toward local music programs produced by NPR stations.

If the resignations at National Public Radio continue, there may be no need for Congress to defund the aging dinosaur, because there will be no one left there to turn the lights on. The latest is Betsy Liley, NPR's director of institutional giving. Conservative activist James O'Keefe secretly recorded phone conversations between Liley and a man masquerading as a potential donor from a fictitious group called the Muslim Education Action Center, which the man said had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

It is one of those issues that leaves little room for bipartisanship. Funding of National Public Radio dramatically divides liberals and conservatives. The House voted on a bill Thursday that would bar federal funding for NPR. It is unlikely to pass the Senate, but the issue is sure to create harsh rhetoric on both sides. Republicans in general would like to nuke NPR; liberal bias, they say, and they shouldn't be spending tax dollars on liberal bias. They say NPR should stand on its own like any other broadcasting entitity, like our good, fair and balanced friends at Fox. Many Democrats, on the other hand, believe NPR serves an important purpose for many Americans, and feel the public broadcasting funds are well spent.